Distant Worlds: Returning Home

If you are a fan of the music of Final Fantasy and have not experienced Distant Worlds yourself, definitely pick up this DVD! Apart from the video disk, there are two separate audio CDs of all the songs performed. The small booklet has small writeups on the two ff composers and the conductor, portraits of the invited soloists (Meng Feng-su is brilliant!), as well as some random art and photos of the event.

This particular recorded performance is from the 2010 concert in Japan. Good mix of songs touching all the years of FF. Dancing mad was included, so nice! This reminds me of the friggin' pipe organ built into the Royal Albert Hall.... and this faint memory that the organist messed up some bits of the music. In the DVD, dancing mad was very beautifully played.

The dvd also had a making off section that was fairly interesting, though what caught my attention most was the discussion between Nobuo Uematsu and Masashi Hamauzu about their composition styles; Nobuo Uematsu indicates he composes a pop tune then fills in the rest, whereas Masashi Hamauzu takes a more structured (classical?) approach. 

I must say I am more biased towards Nobuo Uematsu's compositions, which I feel has more melodic content. Then again, I haven't played the games with music by Masashi Hamauzu, so..... it could simply be just I like stuff that I've been hearing over and over and over again.

Anyways, great DVD, I will enjoy listening to it over and over again :)